Trip Begins With A Very Poor Start

Jhonny Peralta went 5-for-5 with with three doubles, a homer and three RBI out of the cleanup spot for the Indians on Monday night. It wasn't nearly enough as Cleveland began its most crucial trip of the season by getting 14 hits -- but losing, 9-7, in Chicago to drop 10 1/2 games behind the first-place White Sox in the AL Central. Tribe starter Jeremy Sowers was a bad as Peralta was good.

Indians manager tried to find a bright spot, telling reporters: "When you're down 8-1 in the second or third inning on the road, it can get to you if you allow it to. Our guys didn't let it.

"They kept playing and we were able to bring the tying run up. We're not looking for moral victories, that's for sure, but the flip side of that is we're never going to cave and our guys didn't."

Sowers (0-4, 7.53 ERA) may not have caved, but he sure crumbled, giving up eight runs on six hits and two walks over three innings.

After Ben Francisco walked and scored on a double by Peralta in the first inning, Sowers yielded a three-run homer to Jim Thome in the bottom half. In the third, the left-hander gave up an RBI single to Jermaine Dye, who later scored on a grand slam by Nick Swisher to make it 8-1.

It was the second grand slam in four games for Swisher. It was the eighth grand slam yielded by the Indians, most in the majors.

In the sixth, Swisher went deep from the left side against Tom Mastny. It was the seventh time in Swisher's career he's homered from both sides in the same game.

Mastny was hurriedly recalled from Triple-A Buffalo in the afternoon when right-hander Scott Elarton asked manager Eric Wedge to be placed on the restricted list for personal reasons. Mastny got to the ballpark in the third inning, entered in the fifth and pitched three innings.

Thome's three-run homer was his second in two games, 16th of the season, 523rd of his career and sixth this year against his former team.

Shin-Soo Choo and David Dellucci each singled home runs for Cleveland in the sixth against winner Gavin Floyd, who struck out a career-high 10.

The Indians scored one run on an error in a three-run ninth. Peralta, whose five hits were a career high, added an RBI double and scored on a single by Choo.

The Indians play two more games in Chicago before going to Minnesota for three games and Detroit for two.